weird, how people can bring things to the fore. jeremy iacone, sent this to me tonight....

the first time i knew i was creative?...i carved the likeness of an elephant in linoleum.....circa 1977-ish?

i KNEW it was better than some of my fellow students......i just felt it. in my gut.

i was always behind in my class (in a purely scholastic way) as a young child, pulled back either because i was too shy, too young, or too underdeveloped for my grade.......or simply because i didn't fucking care to learn what everyone else was supposed to learn.

i hated laura ingles books-although i loved the 'little house on the praire' series. my parents bought me these books in my early pre-teens.....and my mom recalls me stomping home in a fit of rage in grade school, saying....' i won't read anything....and NO ONE CAN MAKE ME!!!!!!!'

but, strangely enough, i reveled in 'first blood.' one of the first books i read on my own (that wasn't authored by judy blume!)